Chili’s growth spurt is one for the books. The restaurant brand just logged its 22nd consecutive quarter of sales growth — up 10% year over year with a cumulative increase of more than 50% over three years. 

But it wasn’t always this way. When Chief Supply Chain Officer James Butler joined Chili’s parent organization, Brinker International, in 2023, the company “was a little bit stagnant,” he said. One glaring issue was a supply chain so hyper-focused on cost reduction that it took precedence over the restaurant team member and guest experience, said Butler, who is now Brinker’s SVP of corporate strategy officer in addition to its role leading supply chain. 

“When I came in, I recognized that's not a recipe for growth,” Butler said. “I really had to convince the team here that if we're going to grow, we’ve got to think differently about the way that we're doing things.”

In his nearly four-year tenure, Butler has shifted the supply chain strategy's focus away from just buying and cost reduction. Now, the supply chain team analyzes restaurant problems and traces them back to the supplier level to “quell the issue from the root cause,” Butler said. Chili’s leans on its long-term relationships with suppliers to make adjustments, which ultimately cascade down the supply chain and help managers focus on running their restaurants.

“The key success to any restaurant — and we've had tremendous success over the last four years — is the overall satisfaction of the team that's in that restaurant,” Butler said. 

Fighting friction with the supply chain

As Butler assumed the CSCO role at Brinker, which also owns Maggiano's, he and his team identified “little things that are nuisances to our managers.”

One was the buns used for burger sliders. Previously, the buns came in a large sheet of 36 connected buns. Each day, a prep cook at a restaurant would spend about 30 minutes separating the buns.

Butler brought the company’s bakery supplier to a restaurant location to show them the challenge. The supplier said it could make a quick shift to bake the buns in groups of four. Within three weeks, the supplier presented a prototype of a four-bun cluster, which required no prep time and didn’t look ripped apart, Butler said. The first buns went into production in January 2024 for 80% of the restaurants, and the remainder were in place by January 2025. Today, Chili’s continues to use the same suppliers for the buns.

Another friction point was the uneven size of chicken tenders, a popular item at Chili’s. “They're plump; they're really abundant,” Butler said of the product, called Chicken Crispers. “It is more food than you can eat.”

However, the promise of plump chicken at the restaurant didn’t always match what was happening in the supply chain. The document stipulating the qualities and criteria a product must meet, known as the spec, had been written in a way that suppliers “could send in small little pieces that would almost look like a boneless wing” instead of large tenders, Butler said.

Creating a repeat customer base would be impossible if suppliers kept sending varied sizes to restaurants, resulting in inconsistently sized tenders, he said. So the supply chain team tightened the spec for the chicken and increased the frequency of product testing from monthly to weekly to ensure the supplies aligned with the specs. Chili’s has been testing weekly since July 2023 and plans to continue that procedure, Butler said.

These seemingly minor adjustments to slider buns and tenders were part of a bigger picture: a shift in the hierarchy of supply chain priorities at Brinker. Food safety continues to be and always will be priority No. 1, but reducing friction for restaurant managers is now second, with cost management falling to the third slot, Butler said.

Growing with long-term suppliers

Chili’s has increased same-store sales 71% in five years. As Chili’s has grown, so have the needs of its supply chain. One big requirement today: supplies for the chain’s popular Big Crispy Chicken Sandwich. 

The sandwich debuted in April, with flavor variations such as Honey Chipotle and Nashville Hot. Within weeks, the restaurant chain was selling 161% more sandwiches versus pre-launch. In the latest quarter, Chili’s maintained momentum with 55 sandwiches sold per restaurant per day.

“When people come to your restaurant for a specific item … you want to make sure that you have the capacity for it,” Butler said.

To support popular menu items, Chili’s has bumped up the frequency of truck deliveries from twice weekly to three times per week at some locations. The restaurant chain has also leaned into its long-standing supplier relationships to lock in capacity and ensure supply continuity.

Butler acknowledged that Chili’s sometimes pushes its suppliers to make adjustments to products or operations. The more stringent requirements and frequent testing for Chicken Crispers initially drew some pushback from suppliers, who said it was decreasing efficiency around their operations. But since the change, Chili’s has nearly doubled spending on the category with the same suppliers.

Once suppliers saw how product adjustments could grow Chili’s business — and by extension, their own businesses — they became more receptive to the changes.

“We've got a lot of people who have served as suppliers for Chili’s for 30, 40, 50 years,” Butler said. “I want my suppliers to be healthy. I want them to make money. … I want them to be excited that they're a Chili's supplier.”